


The Asteroid Army

by pigeonking



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 03:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10296539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking
Summary: As well as writing my own Doctor I have also done stories for pretty much all of the established Doctors.This is my take on the Doctor's very first encounter with the Sontarans, which I have to say that I wrote before Big Finish decided to offer their own take on that meeting. I'll let you decide which one you prefer. ;)





	

Two battle fleets were poised facing each other across the dark expanse of space. Each side was ready and waiting for the signal to be given to unleash a devastating barrage of destructive power at the other. It was only a matter of time before that signal would come.

Not far from these two coiled space serpents there was large blue-grey planet and around that planet there were seven rings that spanned the mighty sphere in a criss-cross diagonal pattern. These rings consisted of millions of small rocks or asteroids that had once been a planet themselves many millions of years ago, until some cosmic catastrophe had shattered it. The remains of that ancient planet had drifted through space until they had been drawn towards this other sphere and settled into the rather decorative orbit that they maintained to this day.

On one of those small asteroids an even smaller blue box faded into existence. A little yellow light flashed sporadically on top and what little noise it made as it arrived was lost in the airless vacuum.

Inside the little box there was a vast white walled control room which was far too big for this one little box. In this room there was a hexagonal control console covered in an array of switches, levers and nobs, all centred round a transparent round column that up until a few moments ago had been rising up and down rhythmically. Four people were gathered round this console; an old man with long white hair, wearing a black frock coat and checked trousers, an exotically beautiful teenage girl with short dark hair, wearing a striped sweater and black leggings, an older, but no less beautiful dark haired woman, wearing a white pullover and black trousers and finally a handsome dark haired man dressed casually in a blue shirt and brown trousers.

The old man was busying himself flicking switches and taking readings from the various displays on the console.

“Well, wherever and whenever we have landed, there is no air at all. If we go outside we shan’t be able to breathe.” The Doctor told his companions.

“I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t landed on Earth then.” The young man commented with a wry smile.

“Quite so, Cheltenham. Shall we have a look on the scanner, shall we, hmm?” the Doctor muttered irritably to the young man whose name actually happened to be Ian Chesterton. He turned a little black nob on the console and a monitor screen on the wall behind them came on.

The screen showed a rocky landscape and then immediately upon the horizon there was the blue-grey expanse of what must pass for the sky on whatever world they were on.

“It’s rather beautiful, isn’t it?” The young girl declared with a delighted smile.

“Yes, isn’t it, my dear!” the Doctor agreed. “Shall we go outside and have a proper look at it, hmm?”

“But I thought you said there was no air? We can’t go out there, can we?” the older woman asked incredulously.

The young girl, Susan, could barely supress an amused giggle.

“Oh, Barbara. You needn’t worry about that. We can just go out in our spacesuits, can’t we Grandfather?”

“Indeed we can, my child!” the Doctor agreed, putting his arm around his granddaughter. “Be a good girl and fetch them out for me. Chesteron will help, won’t you, my boy?”

“Yes I will, Doctor.” Ian replied and followed Susan out of the console room through an inner door.

As they went, the Doctor gazed up at the view on the scanner again and his old face broke into an excited grin.

 

Outside the TARDIS, which is what the little blue box was called, one of the little doors opened and out stepped the four time/space travellers, bedecked in their shiny silver spacesuits, with their domed helmets and oxygen tanks strapped to their backs.

The Doctor pulled the door shut behind him and turned to join his companions in looking at the full view that waited for them, unconfined by the restricted border of the scanner screen.

The blue-grey sky that they had seen was in fact a gargantuan planet. All around them the travellers could see asteroids of different shapes and sizes drifting around them.

“We must be on one of these asteroids.” Ian realised, his voice filled with awe at the cosmic spectacle that surrounded them. It had been well worth the effort to strap on all this rather claustrophobic gear and come out to see this. Though he and Barbara still missed their own time in the 1960s back on Earth, there was no denying that some of the wonders that the Doctor had shown them in his efforts to get them back home were something that they never could have dreamed of ever experiencing in their mundane little lives as school teachers back at Cole Hill.

So this wasn’t 1960s Earth again. Ian still intended to appreciate his surroundings while he was here and enjoy his unique opportunity.

“Do you see how these asteroids all form a ring that spans around the entire planet, hmm?” the Doctor observed.

“Yes, just like Saturn and Uranus in our own solar system, eh, Doctor.” Ian replied.

“Quite so, quite so.” The Doctor nodded.

“Hey, Grandfather look!” Susan’s excited call interrupted their appreciation of the view.

Susan was skipping across the asteroids surface; each step was carrying her several feet into the air only to come down again a considerable distance from where she’d taken off. She was now quite far away from the TARDIS.

“It’s just like being on the moon!” she marvelled with delight.

“Be careful, child! If you bounce too high you could go shooting off into space and then what would we do, hmmm?” the Doctor called to her irritably.

As if his very words had jinxed her, on her next bound Susan did indeed overshoot and with a startled yelp she disappeared over the horizon.

“We’d better go after her!” Ian sighed.

The three travellers set off in pursuit of the accident prone teenager.

“I seriously think we should consider leaving Susan behind in the ship sometimes.” Ian remarked drily as they looked for her.

The young girl was nowhere to be seen when the broached the horizon.

“Well she can’t have drifted off into space. I’m sure we’d still be able to see her.” Barbara observed.

“Then where could she be?” Ian wondered.

“Help!” Susan’s cry could be heard faintly, but the travellers couldn’t quite pin point where it had originated from.

“I’m down here!” Susan’s voice came again.

“I think it’s coming from over there somewhere!” Barbara pointed off towards a large pile of boulders.

The travellers made their way over to investigate.

When they reached the boulders they found themselves standing over a natural hole in the surface of the asteroid. Susan was in this hole… suspended in mid-air over what appeared to be a metal surfaced chamber. She gazed up at them from her position spread-eagled on her back.

“I think I’ve landed on some kind of force field. There must be people living here underneath us, Grandfather.” Susan surmised from her undignified position.

“You’re lucky that force field was there. It would have been quite a nasty drop for you if it hadn’t been.” Ian observed.

“Perhaps that will teach you not to go bouncing off in a strange unexplored environment, hmm, child?” the Doctor chastised her.

“I’m sorry, Grandfather.” Susan bowed her head apologetically.

“How are we going to get her up from there?” Barbara wondered.

“Chesterton, be a good man and go back to the ship for me. In my chest you’ll find a length of rope. We can tie it off on one of these rocks and lower you down to get her. Here, take my key.”

“Right-o! I won’t be long.” Ian palmed the key and off he went.

 

A short while later Ian returned with rope coiled over his shoulder. He tied one end of it around a nearby sturdy looking boulder then he tied some of it securely about his waist. The young science teacher was about to lower himself into the hole when…

“Look everybody! Fireworks!” Susan called out in amazement.

Everyone looked up at the black void of space that stretched out beyond the planet and its rings of asteroids. Sure enough there were large colourful explosions of light blossoming across the blackness of the void, but though they were no doubt very bright and beautiful like normal fireworks, unlike normal fireworks they made no discernible sound at all.

“Remarkable! Quite remarkable! I wonder what they could be?” the Doctor wondered in awe.

“I don’t know, but they look to me like explosions from a battlefield, except this field is in space.” Ian mused.

“Well whatever is causing them, they’re not going to help Susan out of this hole are they?” the old man reminded him pointedly.

Ian threw the Doctor a rather dirty look, which fortunately the older man couldn’t discern through the visor of Ian’s helmet. Nevertheless, the young teacher did return to his task of rescuing Susan and he began to gently lower himself into the hole.

It didn’t take him very long to reach her and once he was with her he helped her to secure a length of the rope around her own waist. They were standing on the force field and as Ian tightened the knot of the rope suddenly the force field was no longer there.

Ian and Susan cried out as they fell deeper into the hole, the rope was the only thing which prevented them from landing messily on the metallic surface beneath them. As it was the rope left them suspended mere inches away from the floor.

“Are you two all right down there? What happened?” Barbara called down.

“The force field suddenly went off from underneath us. Someone must have turned it off!” Ian called up.

“Do you want us to pull you back up?” Barbara asked.

Before he could answer Ian’s attention was caught by what was in the chamber that they had landed in.

“Not just yet!” he called back, “In fact, you and the Doctor might just want to lower yourselves down here to join us!”

 

And so about ten minutes later Ian and Susan were joined in the vast metal chamber by the Doctor and Barbara.

They all untied the rope from their waists, but left it hanging under the hole so that they could climb back out. Unless of course they could find an alternative exit.

Now they all stood gazing in wonder at the sight that had prompted Ian to invite the Doctor and Barbara to join them.

Before them there stood row after row of tanks filled with a dark, sludgy green fluid. Submerged within that fluid, one to each tank, there was a squat humanoid figure. Each figure was encased in shiny metal space armour that included three-fingered gauntlets, powerful looking boots and a domed helmet that covered the head entirely. Only two little triangular slits at the front of the helmet were permitted to allow the wearer to see. Each figure was attached by some semblance of an umbilical cord that stretched from the top of the tank and into a socket built into the metallic collar of their armour, at the back, where their neck would be… if they had necks. It was almost as if these beings were being grown into the armour, so that they would be wearing it the very moment they were born. For there could be no doubt that what they were looking upon were embryos, gestated in these tanks, waiting to be birthed. Built into the sides of each tank was what could only be described as a munitions cabinet containing an array of alien looking weaponry, no doubt for the embryonic warriors to use when they were released from their ‘wombs’.

“More warriors for that battle we witnessed outside, perhaps?” Ian wondered.

“Quite so, my boy, quite so!” the Doctor agreed.

“What battle?” Susan asked.

“Ian thinks that’s what those fireworks might have been, Susan.” Barbara explained.

“But they looked so beautiful!” Susan replied sadly.

“Whoever turned off that force field,” Ian mused, “Do you think it could be one of those things, walking around somewhere? The mother goose that protects the eggs, so to speak.”

“I have a very nasty feeling that you’re right, Chesterton. And if these people are so enamoured of warfare, as they would appear to be, then the likelihood of them being friendly I should say is very slim, don’t you think, hmm?” the Doctor replied grimly.

“Well if that’s the case, don’t you think we should be heading back to the ship?” Barbara opined, glancing about her nervously.

“Yes, yes. I think that would be a very good idea indeed, Miss Wright. Come along!” the Doctor turned back to the rope.

“Stay where you are!” a new voice, harsh and rasping called out.

The Doctor and his three companions turned to see who the voice belonged to.

A figure stepped out from between one of the many rows of embryos. It looked exactly like the figures that were submerged within the tanks. Identical in every detail except one thing.

This one wasn’t wearing a helmet. The head that sat upon those broad, muscular shoulders was exactly the same domed shape as the helmet that it should have been wearing. Barbara found herself wishing that the thing had been wearing its helmet. Its face was a grey-brown in colour, almost completely hairless apart from the wispy strands of beard that grew from its small chin. Its eyes were small, round malevolent scarlet orbs fixed above a stubby nose and a harsh slit of a mouth. At one point its moist pink tongue protruded past the lips, as if it were a lizard tasting the air.

“Identify yourselves! How do you come to be here?” the creature snarled. In its right hand it held a short rod that ended in a semi-transparent tube. Ian deduced that it was probably a weapon of some sort considering the fact that it was pointed right at them.

“We are travellers!” the Doctor replied, “We arrived here by accident in our ship, but now we are leaving so you need not concern yourself, my dear fellow.”

“I shall decide when you leave. If you leave!” the creature rasped menacingly.

“And who might you be, sir, to think that you can keep us from going about our business, hmmm?” the Doctor retorted.

The creature seemed to stand a little taller as it prepared to introduce itself.

“I am Commander Vorn of the 6th Sontaran Deployment Division. It is my solemn duty to protect these cadets until the moment they are needed on the battlefield in our glorious war!” Vorn announced proudly.

“So that was a battle we witnessed outside.” Ian declared.

“Correct. The 71st Battle Fleet is currently engaged in a minor skirmish with the Rutan scum. This hatchling chamber was placed within this asteroid because of its strategic position near the front lines. These cadets are ready to march out and obliterate Rutans the instant they’re called into service.” Vorn explained.

“That was only a minor skirmish?” Ian shook his head in wonder.

“The moment I detected your presence I ran a scan of your physiognomies. None of you are Rutans. What are you doing here? Have the Rutans resorted to employing alien mercenaries to do their dirty work for them?” Vorn mused, his rod was unwavering.

“And what dirty work might that be?” Barbara wondered.

“It is clear to me that you are here to destroy these cadets before they can be awakened for combat. It would be just like a Rutan to deprive a Sontaran of the chance to attain glory on the battlefield.” Vorn surmised.

“Don’t be ridiculous! Do we look like we’re equipped for sabotage to you?” Susan protested.

“Appearances can be deceiving. I prefer not to take the chance.” Vorn replied.

Ian sized up Vorn, taking in his powerful, squat frame. The Sontaran might not be very tall, but he appeared to be very strong and was clearly engineered for combat like his dormant ‘brothers’. He also spoke of glory on the battlefield. Clearly these Sontarans relished the idea of war and fighting. This gave Ian an idea.

“I have a proposition for you Commander Vorn.” He announced.

“Name it.” Vorn replied.

“I challenge you to single, unarmed combat. If you defeat me then my friends will surrender to you as prisoners of war. If I win…”

Vorn chuckled as if he considered such an outcome unlikely.

“If I win,” Ian continued, “Then we all go free and we can leave this asteroid in peace.”

“Agreed!” Vorn declared without hesitation.

“I ask only one condition.” Ian replied.

“Name it! It will not affect the outcome in the slightest!” Vorn rasped confidently.

“We must fight on the surface, outside.” Ian said.

“Very well.” Vorn agreed. “Come!”

Vorn holstered his weapon and turned away to lead them outside. As the Sontaran turned Ian noted the socket on the back of the armour, near the neck… where the umbilical would have been in the tank. It occurred to Ian that it was an area that might be sensitive to attack, if only he could figure out some way to exploit it.

 

It wasn’t long before they were all back on the surface of the asteroid. The comforting shape of the TARDIS stood not that far away from them.

“Ian please reconsider. We can make a break for the ship now that we’re back out here.” Barbara implored Ian quietly to one side.

“He could gun us all down with that weapon of his before the Doctor could get his key in the door.” Ian replied bitterly. “No this is the only way, Barbara.”

“But he’ll kill you! Look at him! He’s clearly the better warrior. This isn’t some young arrogant Aztec now, Ian. He’s an alien killer who was born specifically for fighting and killing. You don’t stand a chance!” Barbara protested.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence!” Ian teased, “Don’t worry, Barbara. I’ve got an idea that I think might just work.”

“I hope you’re right.” Barbara sighed. Beneath her helmet she was glad that Ian could not see her tears.

“What is that object?” Vorn was intrigued by the TARDIS.

“That is my ship.” The Doctor replied proudly.

“That!” Vorn cackled scornfully, though he was slightly muffled now beneath his domed helmet. “It has no offensive capability. It would be a useless warship.”

“I’m glad to hear it! My TARDIS is meant for exploration not the field of battle!” the Doctor declared.

“Exploration is for cowering wimps!” Vorn hissed.

“Can we just get this over with?” Ian interrupted.

“Are you in such a hurry to die, worm?” Vorn wondered, but nevertheless he turned to face Ian… ready to fight.

“Good luck, Chesterton!” the Doctor called encouragingly.

“Be careful, Ian!” Susan added.

Ian nodded and stepped forward to face his formidable opponent.

Without warning, Vorn let out a blood curdling battle cry and launched himself at Ian, arms outstretched. Ian darted beneath his grasp and ran behind Vorn, but the Sontaran turned to face him again, and again he charged at the school teacher. Each time Vorn charged, Ian dodged him like some sort of spacesuit clad matador.

Vorn hissed with frustration. “Stand and fight me, you coward!”

“Oh, I’m no coward I assure you. There’s a method to my madness, you’ll see!” Ian taunted him.

And then the moment came when Vorn was standing exactly where Ian wanted him… with his back to the TARDIS.

Ian dropped to one knee and scooped up the largest rock he could find. If this had been Earth gravity he would have had trouble lifting it, but in this environment it was like lifting a tennis ball. And it was just like a tennis ball that Ian threw it.

The rock sailed past Vorn’s head and the Sontaran laughed.

“Was that the madness to which you referred?”

“Wait and see!” Ian replied cryptically.

The rock had indeed missed Vorn, but it did not miss the TARDIS. It struck the time machine and rebounded back towards the Sontaran… striking him squarely on the socket on the back of his neck!

Ian’s gamble paid off as the result of rock hitting Sontaran socket was instantaneous. Vorn bellowed in agony and sank to his knees before finally tumbling forward onto his face to lie still.

“Remarkable, my dear Chesterton! I didn’t doubt the outcome for a second!” the Doctor cheered, clapping Ian on the back.

“Thank you. I wasn’t so sure myself. That socket on the back of the neck was a bit of a gamble.” Ian admitted.

“Well it paid off in spades, my dear boy!” the Doctor replied.

Ian was nearly knocked off his feet as both Susan and Barbara barrelled into him with constrictor strength bear hugs.

“Don’t you dare do anything like that again!” Barbara scalded.

“I’ll try not to make a habit of it, I promise.” Ian chuckled.

He knelt to examine the prone Sontaran.

“I think he’s just stunned. Let’s not be here when he wakes up, shall we?” he suggested.

“A very good suggestion, young man.” The Doctor said as he inserted the key into the TARDIS lock. “Having met my first Sontaran I sincerely hope that I never meet one again!”

With those words he disappeared into the TARDIS. The others followed him and the door closed behind them. Moments later the light flashed on top of the blue box and it faded slowly away.

 

When Vorn regained consciousness he was not surprised to see that the strange alien vessel had gone. He could not begrudge them their escape. The alien had bested him fairly and claimed his prize as it had been agreed. Vorn had never truly considered the aliens to be a threat, but guarding the un-birthed cadets was often a tedious task and he had welcomed the distraction. At least there had been no other Sontarans present to witness his defeat.

Above him he noticed that the nearby skirmish still raged on as the explosion of missiles and torpedoes continued to flash in the blackness.

Then he saw that something was hurtling from the battlefield at a great speed… straight at his little asteroid. The Rutans had let off a lucky shot. There was no way that they could know he was here.

Just before he and his asteroid were blown to smithereens, Vorn recognised that the incoming missile was actually of Sontaran design…

 

**The End**


End file.
